As volunteers rushed to care for abandoned pets in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, one Oscar winner quietly stepped up to help. Founder of animal rescue organization Houston Pets Alive!, Andrea Birkelbach, has been busy caring for animals, organizing volunteers and comforting owners faced with relinquishing their pets because they lost their homes. Then one busy morning after […]

HOUSTON (KTRK) — Homeward bound! 70 cats and dogs are going on the trip of a lifetime to find their fur-ever homes in California. Since Hurricane Harvey, local shelters have been packed with more and more animals. So, volunteers with Austin Pets Alive, Houston Pet’s Alive, MAD Dog Rescue and Lucy’s Pet Foundation are sending […]

HOUSTON – Andrea Birkelbach is an animal lover through and through. It’s the reason why she founded Houston Pets Alive! two years ago. It’s a group dedicated to turning Houston into a no-kill city. “Every day Harris County animal shelter sends us a list of who they’re euthanizing and so we pull from that euthanasia list and place […]

Houston Pets Alive! usually saves pets at risk of euthanasia. But post-Harvey, the organization has shifted its focus to helping the tens of thousands of animals displaced by the flooding. “People don’t have a place to put their pets—they don’t have a place for themselves,” says Pets Alive! founder Andrea Birkelbach, 33. It took Birkelbach’s team […]